Friends! I haven't sent a DailyQT email in a long while because I have been busy with preparing lessons for my church Sunday School Class at First Baptist Church of Dallas and also leading a daily devotional Bible study with some people via ZOOM Conferencing.

I hope you are still daily in the Scriptures. Since I've been using ZOOM over the last five months, I've been able to connect with people even as far as Connecticut. I only now realize that some of you may also be looking for some support for your daily Bible reading. So, I want to invite you to join us in these two ZOOM ministries:

• Daily Bible Study (based on these readings here) - 7:00- 8:00 AM CST Monday through Friday: 

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7998569898?pwd=aHgxODVkZVMzRWlWWVk3WnIrSjI0Zz09

Meeting ID: 7998569898
Password: john524

Then His people remembered the days of old, of Moses.
Where is He who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of His flock?
Where is He who put His Holy Spirit in the midst of them (Isaiah 63:11).

Isaiah recounts how God redeemed Israel in days of old (Isaiah 63:9), but they turned against Him (v. 10a), and He turned against them (v.10b). Then Israel remembered the days of old (v. 11).

Israel remembered the joy and wonder of the time of God's favor, before they turned away from Him and experienced His wrath. Israel recalled God's salvation, how He delivered them with great and mighty works, how He saved them from bondage to Egypt and destroyed Pharaoh and his army before their very eyes. God provided for them in the wilderness and protected them from their enemies. He gave them good laws, not to burden them but to preserve them. 

Friends, I write to those who know the Lord, to those known by Him. Let us remember the One who has saved us. Let us recall His thorns, the nails, the cross. Let us consider the glory He left and the shame He endured. Let us consider that "while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).

Remembering is the beginning of repentance for believers. When we forget Whose we are, then we forget who we are. When we remember Whose we are, then we understand our reason for being:

He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf (2 Corinthians 5:15).

I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me (Galatians 2:20).

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is more [Christ] (Philippians 1:21).

May the Lord help us remember our reason for being. May He help us remember our purpose, our cause, our ambition, our longing. It is Christ through and through. When we remember this, there is no anxiety and there is no fear; only peace, the peace of God. I pray, dear friends, that we will all experience this peace daily until He comes. 

“As for Me, this is My covenant with them,” says the Lord: “My Spirit which is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your offspring, nor from the mouth of your offspring’s offspring,” says the Lord, “from now and forever.” (Isaiah 59:21).

This is the same promise that we read in Jeremiah:

“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
    after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds
    and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
    and they will be my people.
No longer will they teach their neighbor,
    or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
    from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the Lord.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
    and will remember their sins no more” (Jeremiah 31:33-34).

Again, this promise is echoed in Ezekiel:

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws (Ezekiel 36:26-27). 

In these New Covenant promises we enjoy our present and enduring hope, which we eagerly await consummation in glory. We will not experience the complete fulfillment of these promises until Jesus, our Messiah, is on the throne and ruling, both in the Millennial Kingdom as well as in the eternal state, where there will be a New Heaven and a New Earth. We will enjoy them as Gentiles alongside national Israel, with whom we have become one in the Lord. 

The New Covenant is a fascinating study. Here's a good online article that I would recommend to you on this very subject: "The New Covenant" by Larry D. Pettegrew.

Friends, consider the words of Isaiah 59:2-4,

      But your iniquities have separated you from your God;
      And your sins have hidden His face from you,
      So that He will not hear.

      For your hands are defiled with blood,
      And your fingers with iniquity;
      Your lips have spoken lies,
      Your tongue has muttered perversity.

      No one calls for justice,
      Nor does any plead for truth.
      They trust in empty words and speak lies;
      They conceive evil and bring forth iniquity.

Does this not remind you of Romans 3:10-13 (Psalm 14:1-3; Psalm 15:1-3),

       As it is written:
      
      “ There is none righteous, no, not one;
      There is none who understands;
      There is none who seeks after God.
      
      They have all turned aside;
      They have together become unprofitable;
      There is none who does good, no, not one.”

       “ Their throat is an open tomb;
       With their tongues they have practiced deceit”

And again, it should remind us of Paul's words in Ephesians 2:1-3,

And you... were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

And further in Isaiah, the prophet makes this confession, including himself in the confession:

      Therefore justice is far from us,
      Nor does righteousness overtake us;
      We look for light, but there is darkness!
      For brightness, but we walk in blackness!

      We grope for the wall like the blind,
      And we grope as if we had no eyes;
      We stumble at noonday as at twilight;
      We are as dead men in desolate places.

      We all growl like bears,
      And moan sadly like doves;
      We look for justice, but there is none;
      For salvation, but it is far from us.

      For our transgressions are multiplied before You,
      And our sins testify against us;
      For our transgressions are with us,
      And as for our iniquities, we know them:

      In transgressing and lying against the LORD,
      And departing from our God,
      Speaking oppression and revolt,
      Conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.

      Justice is turned back,
      And righteousness stands afar off;
      For truth is fallen in the street,
      And equity cannot enter.

      So truth fails,
      And he who departs from evil makes himself a prey (Isaiah 59:9-15a).

What is the conclusion? It is the universality of sin, that even among God's holy people, there are none, not even the prophet, who can keep God's righteous commands. Isaiah would concur with Paul's assessment in Romans 7:24, "O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?"

Yet, Isaiah would also concur with Paul's answer: "I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:25). For Isaiah writes,

      Then the LORD saw it, and it displeased Him
      That there was no justice.

      He saw that there was no man,
      And wondered that there was no intercessor;
      Therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him;
      And His own righteousness, it sustained Him (Isaiah 59:15b-16).

Since there was "no man" that was just, there was "no intercessor," God Himself would bring justice and intercession. God Himself would provide the "salvation" and the "righteousness" that His holiness demanded. Paul explains what God did in light of Jesus:

For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit" (Romans 8:3-4).

Jesus Christ has fulfilled the righteous requirements of God (1) by living a perfect life in fulfillment of God's righteous standard, and (2) by being the perfect sacrifice on the cross to pay the ultimate price for sins. And God has made a way that we can vicariouisly enjoy the benefit of what Christ accomplished. And that way is through faith. So that "whosoever believes in Him (Jesus Christ) should not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).

Therefore, it is in faith that we seek God's righteousness in our lives. By this we mean that (1) we acknowledge our helplness and hopelessness in ourselves to do any good and (2) we confess our utter dependence upon the Spirit of Christ both to save us and make us holy. So, let us continue to daily confess our sins (1 John 1:9)  and also to daily thank God for Jesus Christ (Romans 7:25), for we have been delivered from the condemnatory requirements of the Law (Romans 8:1) to now live in the new way of the Spirit (Romans 7:6), so that it is by the Spirit we "put to death the misdeeds of the flesh" (Romans 8:13). So now, as often as we choose to do what is right and follow the principle of love, we are choosing to follow the way of the Spirit of Christ. Before God saved us, we could not make this choice, for we were dead in our trespasses, but now we have been given freedom, let us daily choose Christ.